California Demographic Data Collaborative Webinar Series (Part 1) - The Why
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Kelly Brown: Good afternoon, everyone at the top of the hour getting ready for this, the launch of
this webinar series. We would like to welcome everyone for joining you... Joining us, joining
yourselves and us. And as people are filling up the room, we had about 250 registrations, so we're
expecting a large number of folks. But as we're joining and as I'm giving some introductions, we'd
love to have everybody who has already joined just in the chat, drop your name and your
organization just so that we can capture and get a sense of who's around the table today. So just feel
free to do that as we go along. At any point in time you can share that, and then we can move
forward. So while that happens, I'm not gonna watch that chat. I'm gonna have ask my colleague
Meghan McVetty to take care of that. But I wanted to get us started so we can get started on time
and again, reinforce the welcome to all of you who are joining us this afternoon to talk about
Demographic Day.
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Meghan McVetty: Hey, Kelly, before we jump in, getting a couple notes that the chat is disabled.
KB: Okay, let's see what's happening. Okay, let's see. Let's try again folks. See if they can try again.
Sorry about that. And if you have any problems, other problems, lemme know. So, let's get started
and to talk about centering nonprofit capacity around demographic data. This is a collaboration, and
a culmination as of right now, of almost three years of effort. And collaborative effort between three
foundations in California, the James Irvine Foundation, the Weingart Foundation, the California
Endowment, to really think about building capacity, and strengthening capacity in the nonprofit
social sector around getting demographic data and using it effectively and constructively. And, I
want to give some preliminary guidelines as we get started before we move into the full session.
One, as you may know, this is the first, the launch of a five-part series to address some issues that
we surfaced related to demographic data and identity.
KB: These sessions will be happening every couple of weeks on Tuesday. They'll be approximately
50 to 60 minutes long. We'll allow for Q&A. This is a webinar, so we're gonna ask you to put your
questions into the chat, and we will try to address them as we move along. There will be some
ample time at the end to give some overall feedback on the conversation. Also, as you heard, the
webinars will be recorded and the supplemental material that we'll be sharing with folks will also be
available to all registrants at the end of the full series. So just wanna let you know if you miss
anything, if you can't come, we'll be sure to to fill you in and let you know once we wrap up.
KB: So, with that housekeeping, I want to move on to give you a little bit of background on what
was the impetus behind this effort and why we're actually launching this series of webinars. The
California Collaborative on Demographic Data, as I mentioned, is a collaborative of three
foundations, the ones that I mentioned, who all do funding in primarily in California, almost
exclusively the other, some do I think international a little bit, but really have shared visions and
shared values, but a range of practices and approaches, that they really felt that there was the
opportunity, however, to think about given their shared values and their shared vision. Were there
ways to streamline and align their practices, particularly as it related to engaging them, the
nonprofits that they were funding in their communities, and streamlining the process of an effort
that organizations took to engage them and access resources. And this is particularly true around
demographic data because we know that collecting demographic data and using effectively can be
complicated.
KB: And these foundations really felt there was an opportunity to streamline in the line. But before
I go any deeper, I'm actually gonna let you hear from them directly themselves to talk to you a little
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California Demographic Data Collaborative Webinar Series (Part 1) - The Why
bit about why this collaborative effort was so important. So lemme turn it over to Joyce at the
Weingart Foundation to get us started.
Joyce: Thank you, Kelly. Welcome and thank you everyone for joining us today on, I'm sure you're
all very busy, so it's a treat to get to spend some time with you. And welcome to this launch of what
we hope will be a very meaningful and helpful series of webinars for you. And at first, before I
launch in, wanna thank Kelly Brown for her partnership on this. Those of you who know her, and
you'll hear a little bit more about her later, she is a longtime thought leader and strategist on all
things around diversity and inclusion, particularly in the field of philanthropy in which I've been in
for quite some time.
Joyce: So it's been such a privilege to be working with Kelly and my colleagues over at Irvine and
the Endowment who you'll be hearing from later as well on this very important effort. But as Kelly
mentioned, our three foundations have been working collaboratively on this issue for well over a
year now. You would think it would be simple, but of course it isn't really to come up with a shared
solution on this issue of demographic data collection and reporting. Something we know that many
of you are asked to do by funders like us, but in many different ways and not at all consistent
consistently, as Kelly was alluding to.
Joyce: But as California-based funders that all have a shared commitment to racial equity and
justice, we recognize that not only do our values aligned in so many ways, but because of that, we
share a lot of grantee partners. And so how can we practice what we preach in the spirit of
collaboration and looking to really be most effective and efficient in the work that we do and are
using this important issue as an effort to try to advance that ourselves, for a couple of reasons, really
to inform how we center our grant making with a racial equity lens and ensure that the people, the
organizations, and the communities that have been historically excluded from philanthropy and
traditional and institutional funders like us are included in prioritizing our grant making and also
really to build shared accountability on that and strengthen our both individual and collective grant
making approaches to that end?
Joyce: But I really wanna emphasize that these are institutional commitments. There are three
individuals on the screen here today and a few other individuals that have been working with us on
these teams. But it really is the support of our three organizations collectively that are behind this
effort, and have really committed to making changes so that we can both strengthen the practices
and priorities and understanding of why this is important to us and hopefully important to you as
well. And really wanna mention that there's a strong effort to connect this work to California
statewide and national efforts to strengthen the field of data collection and the field wide work that
we hope will increase insight and reduce nonprofit burden overall.
Hanh Cao Yu: Hi, I'm Hanh Cao Yu. I'm the Chief Learning Officer with the California
Endowment. Welcome everyone. And really joining this collaborative and creating this project, your
voices and experience were really important to us. We wanted to center nonprofit organizations and
what you face rather than what foundations need. So the three of us, the three foundations also
brought a strong commitment to providing the support needed to strengthen capacity around this
data. As you'll hear, this webinar series is direct response and suggestions that we receive from you
all. Thank you for joining us today, and we hope that you'll sign up for the entire series. And so now
it's my pleasure to turn it back to Kelly Brown. And as Joyce said, Kelly has considerable
knowledge around the issues of the intersection of philanthropy and demographic data, and has
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partnered with us since 2021 around our collective efforts. So thank you, Kelly. I'm really looking
forward to this webinar.
KB: Great. Thanks to all of you. And it really has been a robust and fully collaborative effort. I just
wanna acknowledge some additional partners who have been around the table. Joining Joyce at the
Weingart Foundation, Angela Carr and Emy Freeberg, have been active part participants joining
Kelly at the, or James Irvine Foundation has been Kim Canfield. And joining Han at the California
Endowment, Elizabeth Tabita, Patricia Garcia have been active partners as well as Mona Jhawar,
who was formerly at the TCE, but who provided considerable leadership in the first part of this
effort. So really wanted to just acknowledge all of the hands that have been around this table to
make this collaborative work, and who have given input into this robust effort. We look forward to
sharing what we've learned with you as we move forward.
KB: So, as Han mentioned, and as Joyce mentioned, I've been in this work for a long time. My
consulting firm is about 28, a little over 25 years old. And I've been sort of in and out of foundations
and in community helping to translate between nonprofits and foundations and philanthropic
leaders around the best ways to support and strengthen underserved communities.
KB: Most recently I was, although it's been over five years now, was the director of something
called the D5 Coalition, which was an effort, a five-year effort in the field of philanthropy to
strengthen the field with a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. And had five key goals
that we were trying to achieve or at least advance in that five-year period. And one of them was
strengthening the data collection system and the information system so that we could answer other
questions that were of concern. So that was really where we started to lean in to these efforts around
demographic data. But it's important to note that that really built on and partnered with a range of
other efforts in the field in philanthropy, including Change Philanthropy, which is a collaboration of
affinity focus groups and social justice affinity philanthropic affinity organizations.
KB: The Greenlining Institute was an early partner out in California and pressing for demographic
data what is now Candid, which was formally the Foundation center. And GuideStar is a key partner
at the level of national app data aggregation and really strengthening the ability to make meaning of
the robust data that is being generated in the nonprofit sector. So a lot of my work has been focusing
on the best way or the best ways to do and engage this data and to strengthen the field as a result of
it. So before we jump into the meat of the sessions, I wanna just get a quick sense from you about
your efforts to collect the demographic data. So why, if we would ask you to take some time to
answer this poll, it's really what around... What are your current relationship to demographic data?
Are you collecting it? If you are on what? On who other?
KB: Well, as we go through the weeks ahead, we'll dig deeper into each of these parameters as well
as the parameters of the kinds of demographics that folks are engaging. But we just wanna give a
sense of where folks are now, where, again, as the poll is running and we're saying we're getting
good responses. One of the big thrusts as I think Joyce and Kelly and Han mentioned of this
collaborative effort was to really lean into and center nonprofits, and really understand what their
current practices and capacities were, because we felt that there were a lot of assumptions about
what nonprofits could and couldn't do with respect to this data. But we didn't really know for sure.
So a big part of the effort was leaning into that and we found some surprising results, or I guess in
some cases not so surprising given this, the results of this poll is that a lot of you are already
engaging, with this data, and particularly on data for your yourself and your own organizations and
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your constituents.
KB: So let's give it a little bit more time and see if anybody else wants to chime in. If not, we'll
share results. You can see what that is. So a lot of folks, the majority of people who responded are
collecting on their own staff and their constituents. And you'll see that that's kind of the norm of
what we engaged with the nonprofits that we spoke to. So why don't we get into what the substance
of that engagement was, is because that engagement really informed what we wanna share with you
over the next couple of weeks. In 2021 is start, as part of the effort, we sent a survey to over 1200
organizations and efforts that were funded by the three foundations. I think we got a good response
rate.
KB: We got over 400 survey responses and the responses were so rich. We followed up with a
robust set of focus groups that were designed across a range of parameters in terms of size of
organizations, geography, type of work, issue area. We really tried to get a mix of the spectrum of
nonprofit worked because we had a sense that by diversity and variation was going to have
relevance for how folks engaged demographics and data and identity and what they collected on,
how they used it, what were the challenges. So we really leaned into that and got a lot of rich
feedback, which informs the substance of this, of what we'll share today.
KB: What we found, I think was surprising to a lot of folks was that the overwhelming majority of
people who responded to the survey and engaged in some way were collecting demographic data in
some way. You can see that's validated by the poll here. But what was even more interesting, and I
think alarming, although it did also validated some things, was that at 81% of the folks who collect
the data, share it with many over 93 different entities. So we actually asked people to list out or
indicate who they collected demographic data for and shared it with. And they listed over 93
different entities. The majority of those entities were government agencies at various levels, both
state, local, state, and federal.
KB: About 25% was with five private foundations, but a big chunk was with peers and
collaborators. So clearly the organizations are engaged, engaging this data robustly. But what we
also heard was, was that people, because it was such an active part of much of their work, they
really needed to build and strengthen their capacity to collect and use it more effectively and in a
more aligned way with partners and peers in the field. And so while we noticed from our
engagement, there was this burden in terms of multiple requests for data, there was a real robust
need for it to build a capacity to understand and use it better. So all of that was formulated into what
we surfaced were the key issues that organizations encounter when engaging this issue. And so,
even though many of you are collecting it and sharing it beyond what is required, people are also
struggling with for various stakeholders in their organizations, what is the why? What is the
importance and the rationale for collecting demographics and understanding and assessing it?
KB: And so what we'll spend to much of the rest of this session is really helping people articulate
the why and really giving some substantiation to why this is so important. We also heard that people
want to build skills and comfort around engaging identity, which is really what demographics is all
about, how to build that muscle. People wanted to know how to ask the questions, what are the
terms to use, how to navigate things, terms that are changing, that are evolving, that are emerging,
and even some contention potentially within communities around the term. So people wanna
understand and use tools that are getting it right. What are the processes and the mechanisms for
getting this, the data, keeping it safe, sharing it? Well, how does that... What kind of organizational
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capacity really needs to be built? And finally, most and most importantly is how do we use it
effectively?
KB: A lot of folks were robustly using it to inform programs. It felt they could be strengthened in
that area. And again, really wanted to understand how their data could be informed by and inform
broader data for the field. So those were the many of the themes that came out of that engagement
and broader research and how we structured this series of webinars and materials we wanna share
with you. So we hope that we will have some insights and practices that will address some of these
things. Although it is important to note that there are still a lot of open questions and a lot of things
that need to be solved. Some of it has to do with the organizational forms like fiscally-sponsored
projects and universities and what have you. But much of that is on the radar screen is in the process
of being addressed.
KB: So I wanna start with something that seems pretty basic, but which has actually been an effort
to help people understand what this data is. Demographic data is essentially the quantity of study of
the human characteristics and populations. It's a robust field. It's well engaged by many, almost all,
fields of social science and government. It's often framed, more narrowly in terms of diversity data,
really, with a mind to understanding how diverse are certain contexts and characteristics. And
sometimes it is perceived I think as data that can be used in a punitive way. But really this is rich
data on who people are and how that's changing and what and why it matters. Often demographics
also focus on what we're referring to as intrinsic characteristics such as gender, race, ethnicity,
sexual orientation ability, things that's, that are in many cases, most cases, observable, although
we'll get into that. And immutable, although, we'll get into that too. Some of those things are not as
explicit and as immutable as we think, but that's often where race and ethnicity, sexual orientation
ability, sort of follow those categories and span, a number of other demographic characteristics,
which people are often interested in, which are more acquired, like your politics, your party, your
social economic status, your military service, things that change or acquired.
KB: They're not clear lines between a lot of these things, and we really want to assert that some are
not more than others and the way they matter are often in intersection. But we just wanted to outline
that and reinforce is that demographics is a very, robust and a highly engaged field that, that we can
learn a lot from in terms of folks learning and research. As we know, governments use this, use
demographics. They do the census every 10 years. And sub-census is in between to inform
redistricting, to inform how government resources are deployed to inform many, many, kinds of,
aspects to how government agencies operate. Of course, businesses use them to understand markets
and product design and how things are changing. Philanthropic organizations use it to inform their
grant making, how to ensure that communities are included and communities are not not missed.
Human service and advocacy organizations, use it to understand who's being reached by their
messages, either effectively or not effectively, whether programs are relevant. And of course,
political campaigns use this, across parties. It's not a partisan issue, demographics. All parties use it
to, to really understand voting patterns. And how to design messages.
KB: So this is all to reinforce why demographics is, is important in general, but sometimes I think
in our sector, we need a little bit more concrete ways in terms of understanding how, of why
understanding who you're serving, engaging, reaching, is going to, is really critical. And I came up
with this, with this example of a veterans program, let's say for example, that purports to serve
everyone reaches out to everyone, does not discriminate, in terms of their, in terms of their efforts
and provide services to both male and female veterans. And they use, let's say, a measure called net
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promoter scores to assess how good their programs are in terms of a score of who's likely to
recommend their programs. And they use this as a measure to change over time.
KB: And if they just have overall generalized data, they might see that their net promoter scores are
going up. You know, six would, you know, some would add, recommend it as a six over time. Some
would recommend it as an eight. But if you really were able to look beneath the data, the aggregate
data, and separate it out by gender, you would see potentially some different patterns emerging that
would give you insight, this program insight into how to change and refine and understand what
might be going on, given that even though overall the numbers are going up, something is
happening underneath with respect to men and women. And that data provides you with the
opportunity to really focus on refining and fixing and adjusting programs in a way that actually
might ultimately, overall raise your outcome and your impact.
KB: So you could go from seven or six to eight, go from a six to 10. Oftentimes people, when,
when people, think about engaging demographics and saying, well, we're already doing good as it
is, what we're, what we're trying to convey is that demographics can actually do, help you do even
better. And not only can it help you refine existing programs, it can really help you think about
planning for the future. We live in extremely dynamic and complex time. And organizations really
need to understand the trajectory of their communities and their programs and plan for the future.
Understanding demographics and having baseline data can really spot trends that are happening
over time, and prepare for them and plan for them and engage, more deeply. So, the dynamic nature
of identity and communities can, is really, can really be captured with robust demographic data. So I
wanna just pause here for a minute, and ask you all to consider in your own work, given that many
of you are already engaging this data, how do you know you're making a difference if you don't
know how you're, who you're impacting, and so many of you are collecting it on, constituents.
KB: But we really want you to lean into that, that question. Really think about how this data can
help you inform your programs and messaging and strategies and really think about how are you,
how could you use this data to be much more intentional about how you're thinking about your
programming and how you're, how you're reaching, various communities and how you are ensuring
that you're not reinforcing what may be existing disparities. And ultimately knowing demographics
is essential for impact because it's about knowing who people are and how they want to be seen and
what they need. But in these times that... No. That information and that engagement can be charged.
And as we go through the, as we go through the sessions, we'll go more deeply into how to support
efforts, and capacities to translate what seems like raw hard data into actually the meaning of
understanding identity and the complexity underneath that.
KB: And to navigate what can some be sometimes be highly charged, conversations and
interactions around, who people are and how they're changing. This relates, I think, in important
ways to how people think. And it's interesting that folks, most of you were already collecting
information on your boards and staff, is that while there is often, a leaning toward, understanding
constituents, understanding your own makeup and your own human capital, is also really critical.
And why it's important to understand your own relationships and your own makeup because it helps
you think about your recruiting strategies, the kinds of networks that you form, the kinds of,
partnerships that you enter into and information and real data can help inform those strategies.
KB: This is just an indication and an illustration of why that's critical. All of you, or at least most of
you, unless you're a local chapter of a national, entity, understand that what is happening, across the
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country is already happening in California. The left chart shows how the demographics of the state
is rapidly changing and has been for years. If you're already a minority, as I say, a minority, majority
are minority population, meaning that every, at least along the lines of race and ethnicity, everyone
is a minority, and that's a real opportunity. But the graph on the right reflects just a handful, just a
constellation of organizations that were funded by California Foundation and collected some
demographics on themselves and their leadership. And it's clear that there is a meaningful disparity
between the senior leadership of some of these organizations and the constituents that they're
serving.
KB: Now, we, this is data that that could prompt questions and engagement because there could be
many, many reasons for why this is the case and how this might change or what strategies might be
called for here. But this is the kind of thing that data can help, organizations engage and think about
as their populations and constituencies change. So I wanna pause. I saw someone in the chats ask
for the deck, and yes, there will be, the decks will be available. They will be made available at the
end and in addition to supplemental information that we'll provide along the way. But just wanna
stop and see if there are any questions that folks have along the way. Not saying any.
MM: We're not seeing any, and I'll keep watching. So if there are questions just to put them in the
chat or in the Q&A.
KB: Yes, we encourage you to ask questions or make comments. I would love to just hear your
feedback and engagement on these preliminary issues. So feel free to jump in. So we just wanna
reiterate again how this data can be helpful and it isn't always helpful to organizations that may be
trying to transition or trying to quote unquote diversify. Even though, as I mentioned, that's often
how this data is framed. This is essential data that can really help organizations that are already
grounded in, diverse communities and communities of color or what have you or even,
communities around other particular demographic affinities can really draw on this information to
strengthen their programs and to also align with partners and peers in the field. One thing that we
also really noticed and wanted to reiterate was folks really felt the need for how to connect to their
data and their information with their peers and colleagues and to do that effectively and robustly
and efficiently. And that's really critical.
KB: So I hear, I see a question here, Meghan. I'm just gonna, I just pulled it down. I'm just gonna
answer it. And you know, how organizations, address disparities and outcomes is really one of the
most important things is because you can't address disparities and outcomes if you don't understand,
if you don't know that the disparities are there. And that's why the data is so important. This is the
kind of data that can actually prompt conversations around changes to interventions and changes in
whether changes there interventions that that organizations themselves can implement, or whether
they're, interventions that, that are larger and structural that they may have to engage partners and
policy, folks around to address, to address the kinds of disparities that might, they might find as a
result of this data. Is there another one you want to surface.
[pause]
KB: So Hanh can you jump on and maybe just speak your question?
HY: Great, and you may be going into this segment right now but we care a lot about the proximity
of our partners the communities which they serve. So how do these data speak to how they're
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proximate to the experiences of our communities?
KB: Absolutely, that's really important. And I think that was actually kind of what we're trying to
get at with this sort of comparison is how are people who are directly impacted by some of the
interventions of nonprofits really in roles that are designing what those interventions should be?
What is as you put it the proximity of folks and organizations to the work that's happening on the
ground? Because we know that that is important for informing and giving insight into how to design
interventions. Again while Folks might say you don't have to be a Black person to serve Black
people absolutely not. But it is really important to have that as you call it that proximity and that
sense of knowing what is going on within communities. And that is how data can inform for
example in the example one of the anecdotes some data was accumulated that found that most of
the organizations that were getting resources were located in a zip code a downtown zip code that
was not based in the communities that their constituents were largely worked in. So either
constituents had to come to them or it was unclear whether folks were going out into the field and
really had a grounding there. So that is that's how this data can really inform how do you design
your outreach strategies as well as your as your recruitment and engaged in leadership examples.
MM: Kelly we have a really interesting question and comment in the Q&A from Brandon Gordon.
KB: Yes, and it makes it hard for leadership to use it to improve hiring and retention practices for
example without this data is what I'm assuming you're you're saying absolutely if you don't have
information to understand how to reach people, how to network with people who might be able to
effectively engage the communities that you're working in. It's very difficult to do without this data.
MM: Yeah and the question preceding that is how to get organizations comfortable with talking
about racial disparities and noting that it's very easy for people to say they aren't affected by them.
KB: Right, the data... Well as we move through that I think that is what we will we will engage
people around is how to make meaning of this data. In other words how to not just get data for
data's sake but to really understand what are what is changing what isn't changing and how do we
analyze the the cost and adjust our strategies and practices in accordance. So for example in the
example I gave around the promoter scores it felt like things were getting better. Generally whatever
services and programs are being offered were generally in aggregate data improving but when you
disaggregate the data it helps you understand what are where are their disparities and outcomes and
how can we make adjustments in our programs to address them and sometimes that's
straightforward and easy and sometimes it's a little bit harder because sometimes that does require
challenging assumptions. Sometimes that does require changing long-standing practices. Sometimes
that does require bringing in perspectives and voices that are proximate to your point Han to where
you may be seeing changes in disparity and so we will engage as we move along how to build
competencies and comfort around that.
KB: So I just want to move on and sort of give you reinforce that what we're trying to to engage
here is to remind folks is that this kind of data, demographic data or information on who people are
and how they engage the world and how they engage your your interventions are critical for every
kind of organization. If you're doing something that involves people you can be strengthened and
informed by demographics whether that's a direct service whether you're working in a general
certain geographic area because we know neighborhoods communities change. They're in constant
shifting and fluxing and sometimes it's not always obvious by just walking through a neighborhood.
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Sometimes people think well we're an advocacy organization. We message to everyone. We are
policy. We work on things that affect everyone. You still really need information about who that
everyone is in order to design strategies and messages that that are effective. Research is the same
way. Research is designed to to support and help all individuals but it's still really important to
understand what is behind, what is beneath the everyone so that the research is designed in ways
that there really provides equitable and appropriate impact and not just the same thing for everyone.
KB: I also want to add before as we start to think about moving moving into the next few sessions
is that one of the reasons why I think this conversation around demographics and demographic data
especially in the social sector which I would argue lags a bit from other sectors like government and
private sector and understanding the importance of this data to impact. But I think we are
increasingly realizing that we live in an ever-expanding and critical data environment. We live in an
environment and this has changed I think even in the 10, 12 years since I've been digging into
demographics in the sector.
KB: It has changed into an environment where people expect to have data, where people are relying
on data, where people are making billions of dollars on data and then really using it to inform
almost every single aspect of life, for better or for worse, I would say. But I think folks are really
beginning to appreciate why it's so critical to have good data competencies and practices and our
hands around. What this means to understand what's appropriate, what's not appropriate, but also to
understand what is the meaning of data and how do we use it effectively to strengthen our programs
and to begin to challenge, I think some of the assumptions that it's not necessary, it's not needed
because I think the world that we're living in is really indicating that it is quite central. What we're
hoping is that part of this series and this engagement, will help people get comfortable around data
that can sometimes be charged and sometimes be politicized to really get comfortable with
operating with it and around it and on its behalf in a way that is normalized within their
organizations. So we want folks to think about your own approach to collecting this data? If you're
already collecting it, is your sense that everyone in your organization understands it?
KB: Everyone on your board, staff, and constituents? Is there some alignment? Is there work to do
to build alignment around understanding the importance? Do you have clear questions that you
think this kind of data can answer or address? Again, oftentimes we hear that people collect this
data because either they need to report it or because they think they should but they still aren't really
sure what questions they're trying to answer. And the why, which is why we started this seminar
with the why of this data, is really the foundation for the what, meaning what do we ask, and the
how, again, how do we get it, and then the to what end, meaning how do we use it to really advance
equity, to strengthen our programs, to address disparities to robustly build our human capital? What
are our whys around? What are the questions that we really want to answer? And then what do we
need? What kind of support, what kind of skills do we think? How is there upfront investments in
building capacity? Can we develop plans to institutionalize and streamline it and better integrate it
into our organizational processes?
KB: These are the questions that we want people to engage and bring and we'll help answer over
the next period of time. So any questions before we move to helping folks with the challenges?
MM: Not yet.
KB: Okay, well, let's lean into them, and then we'll summarize with what we plan to do over the
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next few weeks. And one is to, we do want to acknowledge that there are sometimes, as I've implied
or referred to over the way, there's sometimes resistance to this data at engaging issues around
identity sometimes particularly when the conversation is between nonprofits and foundations there's
a sense of their diversity measures will be held accountable would be penalized if we're not diverse
if our numbers aren't good so that sometimes is a challenge that people face again sometimes people
just don't feel comfortable engaging identity what if we say the wrong thing. What if we use the
wrong term? What if people don't like to be asked these questions? Let's just pretend it doesn't
matter or let's just guess. So we really need to overcome those barriers and lean into giving people
some capacity to address this. Folks don't feel like they have the tools or the expertise. They think
they need special systems or software. So we wanna provide folks with some strategies for
addressing that.
KB: Sometimes people often assume or leadership already assumes that they know who they serve
and yet we found from again our anecdotes and the changing nature of the communities you don't
always know who you're serving sometimes even if it's not obvious that they're changing it's helpful
to really engage and to understand and not assume that you know some people think it's an
appropriate to engage these questions of legal or racist they put up lots of real scary resistance to
these questions even though they're answered every year for the census and on many many many
many forms but there are actually some meaningful concerns around what is appropriate how to ask
what issues around privacy what are the legal issues around employment and using it in those those
capacities so we'll try and address that and sometimes people think that these issues just don't matter
or shouldn't matter and I think we've shared a number of instances and examples about why it
absolutely matters and why it doesn't always matter in the same way. It doesn't matter for every
single thing. It matters in complicated interactions with others. But we do wanna be able to build
your capacity to address some of these concerns. And these are just some that we've heard about
over the years. There could be many more. And again, we encourage you to bring your points of
resistance, and we can help you solve that.
MM: And Kelly, we have a great question. You mentioned that looking at the data differently is
aimed at challenging assumptions and building insight. What is the role of community engagement
to provide qualitative data or context?
KB: It's very, very rich. And I think as we move forward into subsequent sessions, what we'll be
trying to do is to get you beyond the numbers, beyond the percentages, beyond the thresholds to
making meaning about what you find and this will be a process of, in some cases, starting with a
certain kind of data, and what you'll find is that it's actually not answering the questions that you
really want to address, and that's when engaging community around what are the key questions,
who should we be asking about, what are even the demographic parameters that are meaningful.
You could be asking about race, ethnicity, gender identity, and people, you could feel like, well,
actually, there are really other questions and variables that are important. And so the data is really a
start or a part of a larger conversation, because at the end, the data should really still be about to
what end and what are we trying to change and strengthen and that all, particularly when it relates
to identity and who people are, that always has to involve engagement with the people that you're
talking about. So it can be an entree, but it shouldn't, I think it should evolve into a partnership.
KB: So I wanted to, as we wind down this initial session, just mention and reiterate what some of
our foundation partners indicated early on was that what we're trying to do here, this effort, as I
mentioned, was unique in its intention to lean into really understanding nonprofits' issues and
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concerns and capacities and focusing on the foundations and their scope, which is in California. But
we do live in a context where a number of folks, for a number of reasons in the philanthropic space,
are really starting to engage demographics more robustly. And this is good on the one hand in that
it's potentially creating more insight into where resources are going and how they're impacting, but
it's also increasing the burdens and the systems. And so we're very focused and committed to
making sure that what we learn and what we do is connected with other more field-wide efforts
whether that's statewide or even nationally.
KB: I mentioned candid which is a national international actually data aggregating partner which is
really building its capacity to robustly provide or VO data resources that were positive repository
for the social sector in general peak which is an associate affinity association of grants managers
and foundations have several efforts and there are many others that are emerging. And so our real
commitment through this effort not only the collaborative effort but also our engagement and
collaborative collaboration with you is to really sort of use this to inform those efforts and to bring
what is happening in those efforts into this conversation inside but all of it which is comforting is
with a shared goal which is to reduce the burden and the constraint and the cost of for non-profits
projects engaging critical information and in the process really build and strengthen the insight that
everybody actually can gather and take away from this. So just as we start to wind down we want to
just give some outlines over the next few weeks Meghan are you jumping on or if I moved fast.
MM: Say that again Kelly. We don't have any questions now.
KB: Okay, so two weeks from now on May 9th, at the same time, we'll move into what we're
calling the tools and the taxonomies, which interestingly enough is often when you have these
conversations is where people start. What tool should I use? What questions should I ask? How
should I use Latinx? What is the nomenclature? How do we navigate those things? People often
start there, but we try to wind back and start with the why. What questions do you want to answer
and what are you going to do with it? And ground that and then that will help inform the kinds of
tools and taxonomies and so what we'll be discussing on the 9th is really thinking about giving a
little bit of background on the current conversation around different concepts and terms with respect
to race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and gender and ability. And talk a little bit about the
implications of what that means for how organizations, what are the tools that organizations need to
do to be sure that they have the insight and the granularity that they need from their communities,
while at the same time recognizing that there are larger field-wide and national efforts that can be
informed and inform their data collection processes?
KB: And how to sort of thread that line with the tools and the terms that you use. Two weeks after
that, we'll engage in collection strategies, like how to get the data, how to keep it safe. The variation
between surveys and administrative data I'll share a little bit about those those processes two weeks
after that we'll engage in how to use the data it's like what are folks using it that's where we'll
address some of the questions and the things that folks raise what are the kinds of questions that this
data is trying to answer may not be answering who else should we engage in this what other kinds
of data might need might we want to use and collect because at the end of the day we're actually
trying to use it to make change and then what we have currently planned is that the last session will
be kind of an open town hall for open questions more discussion between all of you about what
you've learned what you all are practicing as we move along we'll be gathering information from
you and an insight from you questions from you that we'll try and answer as we move through the
series but we want as of right now we're holding that session for for kind of an open space to
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discuss and share and answer questions and potentially give feedback on what might be potential
next steps.
KB: So I think Meghan has put into the chat a very a link to a very very quick survey which is our
first step in getting that feedback so we'd love to hear your reactions to this initial webinar, but also
what you might like to see in upcoming sessions and see addressed. So whatever, some of your
issues and concerns that you have that may not be captured, at least obviously from what we've
outlined here. And we really will take this feedback and refine and improve as we move through. So
I'm going to stop there and see if there are any final questions from folks, thoughts, comments. Now
is an opportunity to engage and put some things on the table so that we can take them into
consideration. Don't be shy. So if not, I will, that will be all for this session. And we will look for
the feedback that you have in the survey. But we would love to hear your feedback on process,
engagement, as well as content and what have you. So we're gonna see if there are any final
thoughts or insights from our foundation partners that you want to share as we move into
subsequent sessions. Now is your time.
MM: Just another appreciation to you, Kelly, for all of the information that you so eloquently
provided in 50 short minutes and encouragement for everyone on the call today to come back. I
think we're really going to get into the meat of some of the stuff we heard directly from many of
you, and we look forward to engaging in that conversation. Hanh, Kelly, Martin, any other
thoughts?
HY: Now I echo your sentiments. Thank you, Joyce, and thank you again for joining us. We look
forward to seeing you on the next webinar.
KB: Great. Well, we'll leave it open for a few more minutes just in case anybody wants to jump
anything. We appreciate all the gratitude, but do take the survey and let us know. We really want to
try and make this as helpful and as useful as possible five short 50-minute sessions there's a lot to
cover but well we learned a lot you know a lot and we really look forward to this being a robust and
collaborative engagement. One thing I did forget to mention was my two colleagues that I've been
working with over this have been working with over for some time Meghan McVetty and Audreys
Campbell who have joined us and have been listening in they'll you'll see them around the table
over the next few weeks and they'll be sharing more about themselves and their own work and again
we'll be giving more information at the end of the full series on all of the decks that will be made
available as well as the supplemental materials that we'll be providing and readings. Great. So on
that note, I think I will close it. Does that sound good, folks?
MM: Thanks, Kelly.
KB: Thanks, everybody. Until next time.

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